Hi, one distressed mama here, looking for some positive stories.
My 4.5 year old son was absolutely fine on Wednesday, i picked him up from nursery and when we came home, he was a bit whiny but played ok, after which he watched a bit of cartoons on the tab, when i could see in his face that he was tired. He then sat on sofa and fell asleep there. I thought he might be coming down with chickenpox potentially as they have had several cases in nursery in last 2 weeks.
About 40min later, i sat in the lounge to breastfeed his infant brother, who started crying, which startled my son. He sat up and i could see his face was vacant , i thought he just hasnt woken up properly: i said to him, go upstairs to your bed, then repeated it, he got up and stumbled, falling but grabbing on sofa. I picked him up and could see he was pale, i put him on sofa- his hands and head started twitching, jaw opening and closing, it wasn't continuous but kept interchangeably repeating, arms sometimes flinging open or he would be rubbing them, twitching stopping and starting again, it wasn't vigorous, more like tics. The stare was vacant, he wasnt really responding to me or his dad, saying random things, basically wasn't with it. His dad called 999. I asked Alex at some point if his head or tummy was hurting and he said yes head and tummy is hurting, so must have heard that from me. All in all, episode lasted about 7 minutes, then he started responding much better, stopped twitching and said he was ok. 999 sent us to a&e. He was a bit dazed in the car at first, said his head was dizzy then was totally fine just tired: singing and speaking.
In ae doctors said his bloods and obs are normal, so they consider it a 1off, possibly not even seizure but sleep talking/walking and tried to send us home. I requested for a paediatric consultant to review him and they agreed to admit him on the ward for review. While waiting, he fell asleep on the bay bed, the nurse came in later and tried to do ECG on him and when she was attaching things to him, he started waking up and twitching in arm and head again, the nurse said this is not a seizure and obs are all normal, looked like a reaction to coming down with a virus. At this point, i noticed chickenpox spots developed on his tummy and some on the back.
On the ward, 2 different paeds said they were not unduly concerned: he responded well to neurological exams they performed on him on waking up, he seems his normal self, bloods are normal, cant rule out a seizure as reaction to chickenpox due to a period of unseponsiveness but unlikely due to no rolling of the eyes, there was twitching but it wasn't continuous through the episode, no foaming, no vomiting and based on that discharged him.
I have private medical insurance so asked our GP to refer him to a neurologist, the GP unlike the paeds wasn't reassuring at all on my description and said it can't be related to chickenpox, he should be evaluated ASAP for epilepsy etc. DH says GP gave telephone assessment which is inferior to three doctors evaluation in the hospital and we should rely on the latter and that chickenpox starting straight after is too much of coincidence.
Has any of you experienced a reaction to a virus like this in their children and it was all ok? My husband is convinced it is the virus and im an anxious freak(possibly made worse by having a 1month old baby as well and sleepless nights)
Seeing neurologist on Monday by zoom, but am aware it might be a long-haul with potential investigations etc.
Thanx to replies in advance